


Severus Snape’s Predictably Inexplicable Trial

by Balos



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-03
Updated: 2013-12-03
Packaged: 2018-01-03 08:56:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1068556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balos/pseuds/Balos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Snape knows courage, unrequited love and how to fly without a broom.  He is a befriender of dark lords and murder of light.  As a double agent, both sides trusted him frequently. He has been both a rescuing hero and the vey definition of petty evil. But even he did not expect his war crimes trial to be this bizarre.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

_I own no part of Rowling’s characters/universe/etc. although I do quote her a lot._

* * *

 

 

 

 

###  **Summary:**

Snape knows courage, unrequited love and how to fly without a broom.  He is a befriender of dark lords and murder of light.  As a double agent, both sides trusted him frequently. He has been both a rescuing hero and the definition of petty evil for a generation. But even he did not expect his war crimes trial to be this bizarre.

 

 

###  **Disclaimer:**   

Standard -- I own no part of Rowling’s characters/universe/etc.

 

 

###  **Notes on my universe:**   

In my story, Snape survived the snake attack and is delivered to the mercy of the Ministry of Magic justice system.

 

I believe that since Snape knew he was going to battle with Nagini in the area, he would have had the Arthur Weasley antidote and a strong bezoar already ingested.

 

There are a limited way a wizard can die and protection from all of them are contained in the Global Potions Guild (GPG) Standard Battle Potions kit available for 5 gallons at most apothecaries.  Snape would have certainly kept one of these tucked into his flat black robes.  These potions just need water, blood or tears to activate extremely quickly and have saved countless numbers adventurous Gryffindors, trapped Slytherins plus other regular wizards and witches over the years.  Wizard wars would not be practical without them.

 

The leading cause of death during any kind of battle is blood loss from a puncture, cutting curse or explosion of some type. Fender's Elixir for Lion Tamers is in the kit and is the generally recommended preventative.  Even the International Guild of Peaceful Potion Masters (IGOPPM) agree, although they warn that blood replenishes must be administered within six hours or the situation may become dire.  

 

If he was not too bitter about it, Snape could have easily covered the suffocation category by using an especially fresh does of Lockhart’s Skin Smoothing and Breathing Potion.  (“To keep that crone away, use Lockhart’s potions every day.”) This was a new addition to the kit, added after Mr. Harry Potter’s brilliant use of gillyweed during the second leg of the tri-wiz tournament made most of the old standard breathers obsolete.   Snape’s guts still burn when he thinks about this.  He had been researching gillyweed for years.  He was only a few weeks away from patenting a whole line of gillyweed potions when Harry Potter stole his ingredients, which blocked the project and hence allowed Lockhart time to snatch the respect of the Global Potions Guild (GPG) community away from him.  Snape has been known to wonder the Hogwarts halls late at night mumbling things like “Lockhart?”, “I was beaten by Lockhart at potions?  I shit more interesting potions!”

 

Anyway, during battle, Snape preferred to use the _Nubis Spiraculi_ spell, which connected his lungs to an invisible air vortex 30 meters above.  He had a sensitive enough nose, thank you very much and when Lockhart said Skin breathing he meant it.  The last thing Snape wanted to experience was armpit breath.  

 

Inner Organ Liquid life Jackets potion was the standard suggestion against being crushed (all or in part) but Snape preferred his own wickedly complex potion; Severus Snape's Stasis Shock Stopper.  Shock Stopper covered a much wider range of calamitous situations.  It turns body shock into a healing coma. Snape argued that while it was true that wizards (Gryffindors) could actively fight longer with the Liquid Life Jackets potion, it created its own problems after the battle. The large amounts of dittany in the Liquid Life Jackets potion made the application of most class two or above healing potions inadvisable for at least 24 hours.  As a Slytherin, he would rather play dead and snatch at victory on a different day than spend a week in the hospital on blood filters.

 

The larger point is that there are a finite number of threats on a battle field and they are easily predictable.  For a wizard and potion master of Snape’s caliber these threats are easily mitigated.  Snape knew it was inevitable that his death would be slow and painful but he had too much pride to die a death that a dunderhead like Lockhart could have prevented.  He could hear the marauder’s ghostly snickering at the very idea. 

 

And just because he didn't expect to survive the war didn't mean he didn't have an obligation to try. 

And just because everybody was calling this "the final battle" didn't guarantee that it was. 

And just because he had fought to hang on to the world with only his bloody finger nails and toes and teeth for 20 years doesn't mean he wasn't going to fail now.

 

However, the snake's poison was enough to throw him into stasis and that is what Harry really saw. For this story's purposes, Shape was retrieved, healed and then sent to Azkaban to await being executed and tried.

 

 

 


	2. Justice for Dummies

  
The main courtroom (or theater as Severus had always called it) was filled as if for a royal wedding.  Severus Snape was chained in the center of the stage wearing a wide stripped prisoner’s robe.  He stretched up out of his chair just a little bit and leaned left just a little bit farther, ignoring the painfully tightening chains, so that he could put his face into an air current that was just strong enough to blow most of the stink of prison out of his nose.   He sucked in deep breath after deep breath of Ministry of Magic air while his mind idly identified smells; everything from bat wings to wood smoke to sex.  He found the exact source of ‘sex’ smell and he gave the couple a knowing look.  The two Ravenclaws hadn’t been in his classes for 3 years, but they still cringed comically confirming Snape’s conclusion.  Snape was extraordinarily pleased by this.  He had spent years training his nose like an opera singer trains their voice.  He had performed more than a few rituals, a few of them rather dark and dangerous.  But, he had given up any hope of ever using this skill again after one day of the watermelon tinged acidic air in that hell they call Azkaban Prison.  

 

The prosecutor for the Ministry caught his eye as he left his station and went and stood before the Wizigmont.  “Your Honor, the prosecution contends that Severus Snape is simply a death eater and is just not a strong enough wizard to be the spy he claims he was for 20 years.  Everybody knows potion masters are never strong wizards and the fact that Headmaster Dumbledore refused Snape the defense position for 20 years is proof of Snape’s inadequacies of magic.  I further believe that in the end, the great Headmaster Dumbledore only gave the DADA position to Death Eater Snape in order to trigger the DADA curse and thereby remove Snape from the castle permanently!”   

 

Severus lost interest in the proceeding as soon as the prosecutor started talking.  It was nice to sit in the court room, in the fresh air, embarrassing teenagers about sex and dreaming a futile dream about having a future where he got to smell interesting things.   He knew the odds of him surviving one week past this trial were nil.  When he was at Azkaban he had been ready for his life to be over, but here in the warm courtroom, where only about 95% of the people around really, really hated him; life was quite acceptable.

 

Hermione was quick to jump to her feet, “Your Honor, the prosecution has also charged Professor Snape with the craven, pre-meditated murder of Headmaster Dumbledore.  The prosecution cannot have it both ways, either Snape is strong enough to kill the most powerful wizard of our time and therefore also powerful enough to be a successful spy or Snape is not powerful enough to kill Headmaster Dumbledore or be a spy or quite frankly at the power level you claim for him.  He would not even have be a very good death eater. 

 

The judge stupidly scratched his head and motioned for both consolers to approach the bench. 

 

In order for Snape to have his nose in the strong air current, he had to view a small portion of the packed audience.  Once Harry Potter realized what Snape was doing, he moved into that part of the court room and was sitting there mouthing something like “I’m going to kill you” any time he could get Snape to catch his eye. 

 

“Stupid boy.  Ignorant boy.” Snape thought.  “At least I was able to keep him alive until he did his part.”  

 

Severus was surprised when the chair’s shackles were undone and his walking shackles were put back on.  He had thought they still had a few hours left in session.  He would miss his air current.  The guards, Donaldson and Gilliam had been Gryffindor’s a decade ago.  Surprise, surprise, they just happened to be extraordinary bullies.  At Hogwarts they had been best buds and had enjoyed sticking it to any Hufflepuff that wasn’t quick enough to get out of their way.  Snape thought that they had found the perfect jobs as ministry bailiffs.  They could still be bully’s and still dress in red uniforms and still be rewarded for being openly cruel.  What more could a Gryffindor want? 

 

What he wouldn’t give to really stretch his body out, to briskly walk down the hall between his office and quarters while his robes bellowed and flapped behind.  Those were the days.  Fresh dungeon air and a brisk pace for he had potions to brew and children to take points from.  Who knew that those were some of the most import things in the universe? Well, besides clean pants. 

 

The guards had the ability to tighten the chains down, so of course they did while they laughed and smacked each other with glee.   The guards didn’t think it was a good session until they had slimy death eaters hog tied on the ground 2 or 3 times between the court room and his ministry cell.  They found that quite funny, “Still, it beats Azkaban!” Severus thought.  Perhaps he had less bruises there, but the air more than made up for it. 

 

An hour later Hermione was escorted into his cell and she handed him the plea bargain.  Snape was surprised he had been distracted so thoroughly that he had not known this was coming.  The scrolls were printed on very expensive paper and even the ink smelled nice.   It smelled like the times the parents of one of his snakes wrote him a lengthy message about how wonderful and smart their little terror behaved.  Snape started to think “Those were the days” again but then remembered that those messages generally came from Death Eater parents and just how much he had been squeezed between avoiding the dark lord’s crucio and keeping any integrity as a professor and head of house.  

 

“Basically the plea bargain,” she said, jerking him back to the present. “Comes down to strength.”  Hermione had started talking before she had finished walking into the cell as a way to avoid feeling in the small dark rectangular cell.  He had not asked how it had come about that she was representing him, but he was thankful to the point that he was thinking about some way to complement her before he died. 

  
She continued being very careful not to take too deep a breadth, “They claimed that for you and Albus to have the relationship that you claim, not only must you have been a master spy, but you must have been in same basic class of wizard as Albus himself.   Even the more reasonable members know that Albus would not have trusted what he did to you if you were not in the same ballpark mentally, magically and morally.  These are things they can measure.  Albus’s scores on the Standardized Sorcery Test (SST) are well documented.  So the Ministry is going to administer the SST to you.”

 

The Standardized Sorcery’s Test was so dangerous that very few people bothered unless they were going for a high public magic office.  Every Hogwarts headmaster had taken it as well as generals and head aurors but very few others.   Any person born with magic was a wizard, but Sorcerers were in a whole different class, and this was the only way in modern times to prove your status.  Snape remembered Albus telling many stories of his SST, most of which had included a long litany of injuries.  Like most candidates, Albus had barely survived.  The SST’s were supposed to cover things like survivability and a high powered sorcerer had better be very good at it, or at least good at battle field healing spells.

 

Snap’s cynical whisper filled the tense silence of the cell.   “What a well-executed trap. This will be even better theater than the trial!  So, I take the SST and if I don’t die … and that is a big if.  However, if I do not die taking the test but fail to reach Albus’s all-time record setting score, the ministry can still execute me.  It’s like dinner and a show.”

 

Snape’s mind whirled with all the ways this could play out as he rubbed the bridge of his noise.  “Most wizards take a year to prepare for their SSTs, not to mention six months to heal.  Potion Masters generally take two so they can have all their battle potions pre-brewed and tested.  Typically, over a hundred details are negotiated before a SST is staged.  Everything from the number of levels, breaks and healers to the small detail of exactly who is going to be hired to fight against me!” 

 

Hermione looked at him sadly.  “You are not taking the potion masters version or even the scholar version but instead taking the advanced auror version and the ministry demanded they have final say for all SST options.”

 

It broke Hermione’s heart to see his expression and so she rapidly moved on “But you have three prep days under house arrest in at Hogwarts.  You get to go home.  You get three days of peace.  And you can speak to the press before, during and after the test.  Well, I wouldn’t count on after.  And you can go down swinging.   Although I think you deserve all the same medals and accolades as Harry; that is not to be.  So I got you three days peace at Hogwarts, an opportunity for you to choose your own poison and perhaps a small, small chance to survive.”   

 

Severus quickly raised his head and looked Hermione in the eyes.  His elegant voice was rough with feelings.  “Hogwarts!!  I get to go home.  You underestimate yourself.  You got me everything.   This is more than adequate chance.”  Snape drew himself up with pride for the first time since his adventures with Wizarding Penal Codes had started.  “I should be disqualified as a Slytherin if this is not enough.”

 

For the next ten minutes, Snape ran Hermione breathless with his questions.  Turns out he couldn’t have his old battle robe because they had been (wisely) thrown it into an active volcano.  The ministry would give him his wand back, but only once he was at Hogwarts.  He could enter with 10 potions and some kind of charmed blade, but the ministry was not releasing any of his assets, including his vault key.  Especially not his vault key.   The details of the SST Contract were being sent to Hogwarts along with the latest version of the most popular guidebook for the tests; End Your Career Crisis (one way or the other) with the SSTs, by Willy Widdershins.  The reason they trusted Snape not to run because Harry Potter had guaranteed his honor.  “Wait.  What?”

 

Baliffs Donaldson and Gilliam came back and smiled their cruel smile as they tightened down no less than seven magical chains.   Each chain had to be applied, tested, adjusted, tested and secured multiple times.   They had him hobbling around his cell in less than ten minutes, but then decided to redo the process just to be sure.   Hermione was tapping her toes and was wondering if she had enough popular support right now that she could just hex these guys.  But they were watching for that and when she finally started to caress her wand she was promptly escorted off ministry properties for the rest of the day and then the real process to “prepare” Snape for the contest began.  Finally they had Snape bruised, conscience and chained almost every way that he could be chained and without leaving the cell, were port keyed directly to the Hogwarts gate. 

 

All in all it was two hours and eight “falls” before Snape made the castle door. 


	3. Seven Thousand Roads

They tossed Snape and his wand deep into Snape’s dungeon office, firmly shut and Snape was surrounded by quiet for the first time since the final battle. He let it rain down upon him and tried to force his skin to soak it in. Every molecule in his nose was singing with joy. Even the fire crab caldrons rotting due to lack of maintenance it was sweet air in deed. Snape was helped in this quest to take a minute and absorb it all by the fact that there wasn’t much else he could do. Donaldson and Gilliam had pushed him in without unlocking his shackles. “Of course they did.” He thought mentally slapping his forehead. “Three days at Hogwarts does not mean three days un-shackled in my quarters at Hogwarts! What was I thinking?? At least they are letting me stay conscience. At least so far.” 

 

Snape had designed his wards so that if he was not at the castle getting through the first 5 to 10 layers wouldn’t be that hard. It was certainly doable anyway. But 48 hours later his rooms would go into lockdown and nobody was getting in, not even a house elf. Just now, taking down enough wards so that they could enter his office he had taken 10 minutes to wake up the right wards so the real wards could be removed. His theory on protecting his office was to allow entry with just enough wards to give a workout. The thieves would then do a quick search and find a few hidden locations, containing nothing too huge or Azkaban worthy. The illicit things were all very thickly concealed and warded separately. So the searchers would find enough to make their day and then leave and continue their search elsewhere. But the next time his enemies tried to enter they would find they had lost access and it would take an extreme outlay of magical energy necessary to get back in. Human nature being what it was, they would not want to report that they had lost access so they would just trust they had seen everything and move on. 

 

When his trial had not included any charges for dark potions or ingredients he knew his true wards had held. Now he understood why the ministry let him have this time at the school. With Snape again in the rooms, his wards wouldn’t reset and they could take their time to torture him into bringing down all of his own wards. And if against all odds, he managed to make it through the SST, then they would have him for some kind of illegal ingredient, even if they had to plant it. 

 

The silence was ripped to shreds by at least 100 house elves popping in. “OH!! Wez can clean!! Wez can clean!!” 

 

The house elves started singing and dancing around, sticking their butt out and wiggling it back and forth now that they finally could get in. They would circle an area trashed during the search, hold hands, and flap their bat ears. Snape was fighting not laugh out loud because he didn’t want to hurt their feelings (and because the place really was trashed.) It was an odd thing to fight not to laugh when he had despaired of ever wanting to laugh again. Standing as he was, bound but relatively comfortable (warm, bruised but not bleeding and with relatively clean pants), surrounded by great cheer and joy, Snape had an epiphany. 

 

He no longer had a need to be *that* guy.

 

His life had narrowed a thousand percent when he got the dark mark in 1978. The whole school had a pretty good idea that Snape and his buddies were Death Eaters and they had a pretty good idea what that meant. The wizarding world was not so very vast. Every time the Dark Lord killed a blood traitor or two, the whole community knew within hours. In his Seventh year there were times when Snape could walk down a hallway and ALL the traffic before him would disappear as the kids ran away in fear. Sometimes Snape would look over his shoulder forgetting that he was the one everybody was afraid of.

 

Snape was one of the Dark Lords few trusted brains. The Dark Lord enabled him to be the second youngest potions master ever. His Darkness said that he wanted Snape to loosely focus on healing since healers were always a rarity in a Dark Army. His lab was a thing of beauty. The equipment closets were wizard spaced inside and held every piece of equipment, every stirrer, every type of cauldron, etc. His ingredient cabinets were to die for (quite a few people did die to collect them.) Snape was held up as a blinding example to the wizard world to show the largess of Voldemort. There was room in the Dark Army, even for half-bloods, if they were talented enough and Voldemort often praised him publicly and privately. It was heady stuff for a teenager and these years were the happiest years of Snape’s life until he realized he had taken a suckers bet. 

 

After his mastery was received the Dark Lord started systematically working on corrupting him. One cold snowy evening, Snape was called into a skirmish, and before that Snape was never called into battle. They stood on top of a grey stone church, outlined by a full moon and the soft colors of Voldemort’s ever present and shifting magic shields. This was the first time Snape was called to stand on the Dark Lords left hand and it marked the end to himself as he knew himself.

 

They watched as family after family was slaughtered. The Death Eaters had divided the victims into Team Blond and Team Brunette and were holding some kind of contest around blood splatter distance or something. Snape had managed to cast a very slight ‘Pacific Totatiatus’ on his own face so that he would not alert the Dark Lord to his distress. But the Dark Lord was aware and somewhat amused by it. “Collect their gallbladders and feed my snake.” Voldemort hissed to Snape out of nowhere. “From all of the filthy muggles, dead or alive. And, Severus, I insist you practice the ‘Aulabibi’ spell”. (Literally ‘temple suck’). 

 

The Dark Lord paused for a second for that to sink in. “Yes, Severus, I want your magical essence to be deliciously dark and still strong when the aurors arrive to clean up this battle.” 

 

Voldemort finally turned around and brought his wand only inches away from Snape’s white mask. “It wouldn’t do,” the Dark Lord had said “to have an independent alchemist.” 

 

“Yes, my Lord” mumbled Snape. 

 

Right then and right there, Snape had narrowed his own life down another thousand percent. He knew Voldemort would not let it rest until he had overpowered Snape’s soul. So Snape got serious and started a crash course on all the magic mental disciplines. He had started taking a ridiculously strong sexual suppressant because he knew being called to rape was obviously around the corner. Snape hadn’t been able to figure out a way that he could avoid torturing people.

 

He supposed that if he broke his victim’s top vertebra, they would lose all feeling in their body and hence not be able to feel the torture. So, he would break their neck while implanting a vision of rats eating their nipples to get realistic screams and probably use an animation spell or two on the limbs for accurate flailing. Maybe some fake blood until a painless AK and his day at the office was done. It hadn’t dawned on him until years later that his goal of avoiding torture had been thoroughly and completely missed. What he did was just as bad as McNair, if not worse. 

 

Then he heard a prophecy and became a spy and his life narrowed down another thousand percent. Regular Death Eaters could make a mistake or two and the Dark Lord would just crucio them for it and it was over. But as a spy, he had damn well never make a mistake, never give the Dark Lord an excuse to tear into his mind or he would be over. Albus began teaching him the skills needed for role, although he never found out where Albus had learned them. Snape worked so hard that he got almost spell or practice on the first or second try. Albus would want to talk about candy or classes or the weather and Snape would talk about magical theory. Albus would tell him to lighten up and Snape would talk about magical theory. Albus would try and trick Snape into taking an afternoon off and Snape would talk about magical theory. 

 

While Snape incessantly worked on mastering every potion, every book, every scroll he would occasionally, very occasionally, be happy. He wasn’t distracted by a family, or a lover or really any social interactions other than Albus. Snape struggled mightily bringing his physical body under control and develop a spy’s reflexes and a spy’s normal modes of stealth and beyond stealth. He didn’t let pain or fear or legality or lightness of magic hinder his progress. 

 

After two narrow escapes Albus had promised that if Snape did become mentally unstable from ritual or torture, Albus would kill him himself. Snape made a reciprocal promise. Over the years he would occasionally have nightmares about that promise, especially one year when Albus seemed to be having a fit during breakfast on the second day of term. Albus was madly giggling and cackling and this caused was such total fear and chaos because if the Headmaster went crazy what would happen to the world?? The children were going spare so Snape physically grabbed the prefects and made them evict all the children from the hall. Eventually Albus recovered and admitted that he had been made helpless by the pixies tickling him. That would be the enchanted embroidered blue pixies on his new lime colored robe. Of course it didn’t stop Albus from wearing that robe again and again. Snape ended it one staff meeting when he got fed up and melted the robe into bright blue goo. After all there are some advantages to being considered a dark and dangerous wizard, and if melting a pixie robe wasn’t one of them, then Snape would kiss a Gryffindor. 

 

In this same vein, Albus started making Snape a one man morality play against dark magic. The students would whisper, “If you go dark, you’ll turn out just like Snape!!!” Because he was a spy he couldn’t tell his students “Don’t become a death eater”. All he could do is make it look really bad. And they bought it! Greasy hair. Really! Like a Potion Master wouldn’t know something, maybe a potion, which would fix that. The colored fingers tips were always fun to apply. Like a Potion Master would risk one of his elixirs to filth or cross contamination. Let’s see. Cruel – check. Alone – check. Ugly – check. Poor – check. Bitter – check. Petty - check. Unloved and unlovable – check. Greasy git – check and mate. Over the years this became less of a character he played and more how he and the world (even Albus) described all things Snape. 

 

BUT SNAPE WAS NO LONGER *THAT* GUY.

 

But what guy was he? By his count he had doubled down or “narrowed his focus” at least seven times. To die as himself he needed to reclaim those layers. He shook his head. “How do you make your life seven times bigger in three days?”

 

“Headmaster Snape!!” Headmaster Snape!!” Snape focused his attention at the elf in front of him. One of the few perks of being the Headmaster that he took advantage of was to cajole the elves into addressing him with respect. “Yes, Pelly” he answered quickly, embarrassed that an elf, well anybody, would catch him day dreaming. “Wez can clean? Wez can clean now even wif youz here and nots come back later?” 

 

Snape nodded careful not to upset his balance amongst the undulated joy of the elves. 

 

“Pelly? Can you remove my chains, perhaps?” He had little hope, but …

 

Pelly narrowed her huge round eyes and shook her head no. “These are wiz gov chains. Elves no touch. Itz magic thing.” Then inexplicitly, she became very happy. So happy that all the elves in the room stopped cleaning (!!) and started waving their ears and butts in dance. In less than one minutes the miracle Snape needed arrived when Winky popped into his quarters holding what had to be the smallest elf child in the world. 

 

“This is Obby, Dobby’s Daughter.” she said in a squeaky whisper. “She iz free elf borns to free elves. She is not a proper elf, but Shes can do anything!” Pelly had given Winky a frown when she implied that Obby was not perfect in every way. Pelly then took Obby’s hand and said “Obby – Play time. Pretendes that youz are the top Hogwarts elf and that Head masty Monk needz his bath and wants youz to get him ready!” POP and suddenly Snape was in his private bathroom in his pristine and beloved dungeon quarters, chainless and near weeping for joy. He was also naked and bald, but those really were small picky details. If Obby was Slytherin, he would have given her an ‘O’ and 50 points. 

 

Five minutes later, Snape really was in the bath scrubbing mightily. Forty minutes after that he was having a bland restorative diner by the fire dressed in a clean, soft, warm robe and his second set of clean pants in a day. And nobody in the British Isles was feeling as blessed.


	4. The Ginger Boa

Almost every child that came through Hogwarts gave their Head of House a gift for Winter Solstice. Minerva and Sprout were lucky enough to generally get some kind of liquor. But for Filius and Severus, almost all of the gifts were some kind of spelled statuary. All of Snape’s were of snake statues and most of them were charmed with some kind of spell. Quite of few of them were cursed, which ironically Snape loved best of all. One of the only things he shared with his bastard father was a love of jigsaw puzzles. He was probably at his most content on winter Sunday afternoons drinking nettle tea with a curse statue to tame. 

 

At least 50 of the gift snakes helped him spy on his students, which made them an odd gift to receive from a student. A few were to spy on him, which at least made more sense. Then there were some really interesting ones. Like the one that dispensed poison if you ‘milked’ it like a real snake or one that shot poison darts out it eyes on command. Alternatively, the one that made anybody in a twenty-foot radius somehow beautiful was cool, but only in an intellectual way; the spell work was astounding. His all-time favorite statue was of a ghostly glowing sleeping moon asp that would increase a wizard’s concentration while in physical contact. 

All together there were approximately 1,860 charmed snakes in his living room on rather special shelves that reached from floor to the vaulted ceiling 11 meters above. They made the room feel thick with magic. His favort was a unremarkable brown snake, but it magically cleansed the air better than any other magic Snape could find. Sometimes, late at night, he would hear the snake statues reciting poetry to each other but he could never track down exactly which statues those were. 

 

At exactly three hours and one minute after he was tossed into his office, Snape calmly walked to his gift snake shelves and removed one glowing under big fat ‘Notice-me-not’ spells. It was an iridescent blue statue of a viper in mid strike. This statue projected a sphere image of all the beings, muggle or magical, in up to a half mile radius. Take that Alastair Moody!! His eye could only do a few hundred feet. Snape made sure that the only people near his quarters were the two cruel guards currently trying to dismantle his office wards. Seems like somehow they had gotten locked in. He checked the power levels on the spelled snake head and then put the snake in alarm and projection mode. 

Severus was irrationally disappointed that Minerva was not in her office. The Ministry must have been clever enough to clear the castle so that none could aid him. He thought that Hermione, as his legal representative, would have been able to come, but the castle was empty and he didn’t want to give up any more of his precious time than he already had being upset about it. 

 

He gleefully retrieved a second snake also under a notice-me-not. This was the most magically powerful gift in the whole collection, if not in all of Hogwarts. He couldn’t help but caress the ginger colored boa as he gently lifted it down and also placed it on to the table. This was a real snake that had been suspended in time and compacted until what was a giant snake could be coiled into a 1 x 1 square. This statue was a little different in providence too; this one had been a gift from Voldemort to congratulate him on brewing his first seriously dark poison. Voldemort had used that potion to pollute the water supply of a mid-sized muggle village. Luckily, the poison was diluted enough so that it didn’t kill anybody but it did make practically the whole village sick. Very, very sick for several weeks. Voldemort couldn’t’ have been more pleased. Ok, thousands of dying muggles would have caused the Dark Lord more pleasure, but the sickness was bad enough for this to be seen as a victory so that Snape wasn’t tortured. 

Much. 

 

The Dark Lord had explained that the real complex dark poisons, i.e. those developed by Salazar Slytherin, required the ability to travel back in time. One person could not stir and add the ingredients needed in the cadences required and two people’s magical auras would ruin the potion. He said “Simply tap the snake’s head with your wand for every hour you want to go back. Every time you use it the snake it will become a little smaller, a little more immature until it becomes a leather egg and then disappears all together. Use it wisely and if your potions glorify me enough I will give you another time snake when I think it is needed.” This had still been during the time when the Dark Lord had thought it politic to be “kind” to his young follower. 

 

Snape and Albus had spent months meticulously going scale by scale over the Ginger Boa until they decided that for once Voldemort wasn’t lying. They also figured out that it had to be proprietary Slytherin Family Enchantments, because neither of them could begin to replicate the magic. But the serpent did work. Snape never used it when brewing poison potions for Voldemort always using the much rougher Ministry time turner, which meant of course the potions were much weaker. Snape would happily take the torture rather than see another ill village ill because of his powers. 

 

But there is no time for a time turner than the time when you only have three days’ time to live. Or something. 

 

“Thump, thump, thump” Snape recited as taped his wand on the snake so he could test that it was still working. At first nothing seemed different until he glanced at the hissing Parameter Alarm Snake and saw a group of people outside his secret back door. One of those people had to be Minerva because nobody else knew that he had a back door and certainly not where it was. Heck, he wasn’t even sure he remembered where it came out.

 

“Clever of the witch to wait there three hours before I arrive at the school and trust I have a time turner.” He muttered. He centered himself, pointed his wand at the center of the Gift Snake Shelves and whispered the word “Confringo” as his wand looped from left to right and up to down. The resulting fireball soared towards the shelves and there were several small explosions. A few snake statues screamed as the shelves groaned, cracked, and started splitting horizontally into two. Three of the poetry speaking snakes exposed themselves by cursing inventively. But slowly a set of stairs of respectable size was somehow squeezed into the middle of the shelves running along the now exposed wall. 

Snape smiled. 

 

He hadn’t tested that ward more than once. He had first warded the shelves against the blasting curse. Secondly, he use a few un-warded vice grips and blocks to squeeze the top and bottom halves of the shelves together. And then one small counter-intuitive curse and BLAM, you have yourself some hidden stairs that the ward breakers probably wouldn’t spot. He called this strategy a Zen ward; “to get the thing you must give up the thing.”

 

Snape ran up the new stairs and started to quickly remove his wards from the exit. Five minutes later he opened the door to see the back of the statue of Sacharissa Tugwood (proprietor of breakthrough beautifying potions. The words on her gravestone read, 'Thanks to Sacharissa Tugwood, the world is a more beautiful place.) However, more importantly he saw the worried faces of Minerva, Miss Granger, Mr. Potter, Miss Lovegood, a very pale looking George Weasley and Lucius Malfoy. Or perhaps it was more accurate to say he saw the scarred and weak images of now burdened headmistress, post-war Granger, post-dead Potter, post-torture Lovegood, post-alone George Weasley and post-prison Lucius Malfoy. 

 

“Come in then” Snape whispered with a huge grin because it was not every day that anybody went out on a limb for anybody else, especially not the ‘Greasy Git’. Understandably, it took the crowd of criminal aiders and abettors a few minutes to get moving again after their shock of seeing Snape with a smile. Alternatively, perhaps, it could possibly have been Obbie’s accidental hair removal that threw them for a loo. Either way, of course Luna was the one to get the ball rolling. 

 

She looked him sharply in the eye, well sharply for Luna. “You have the largest plague of nargles and whackspurs that I have ever seen. You even have a seapire. They are telling you to have wojigunen bath” Then she saw the shelves of Snake Sculptures and her eyes unfocused from the here and now and she no longer paid attention to the people in the room. There were a few uncomfortable twitters from the others in the room (including two of the snake sculptures) but most were used to Luna and paid no attention to what she said. Snape motioned to follow him into his lab and with an economy of practiced movement snagged a pewter caldron, cast a water charm (aguamenti), levitated and dumped a jar of bat wings. He placed this over a dried raft of bound sage branches and in a flash (literally) there was a heavy feel potential magic in the room. 

 

Snape pointed to a large wall of bookshelves. “Miss Granger, would you be so kind as to see if you can find a reference to seapires?” 

 

Hermione’s eyes went wide. “What?” she chirped. “You can’t tell me you honestly believe her.” 

 

Luna’s most airy voice came from the Snake Statue Room. “Ohhh. A bezirolf!!!” 

 

Minerva had a sad smile. She unbent her posture and relaxed her face the first time in what felt like years. “I remember the day Albus decided that that nargles had to be the equivalent of knots in the flow of magic and that wackspurs were like cow licks. He purchased some bright yellow robes with dancing cows with bows to celebrate.” 

 

Everybody in the room shuddered because everybody in the room remembered those robes.

 

Minerva blinked. “Seapires are new though.”

 

Luna’s voice floated in from the living room. “Seapires are like clams.”

 

George called back, “Luna, how are clams related to hair care?” 

 

Luna answered, “Exactly!” and started humming again. 

 

Snape snorted and then shuddered after picturing himself with extreme very long James Potter style messy hair with clams braided in like beads. He then pointed his wand straight up at the stained and cobwebbed ceiling and said “uranicus panis” three times. 

 

Harry nudged Hermione who whispered, “That is Latin for ‘Heavenly Bread’ and I don’t understand either.” 

 

By the third time, the ceiling and the empty surface of the worktable below were glowing. Five seconds after that, a four inch slab of the heavy marble celling smashed down on the table leaving it a mangled mess. Everybody but Snape jerked back. Snape smiled inwardly. He could have opened this hoard without the huge smash, but what would be the fun in that? Put a sneer on his face and that is what the old Snape would have done although he decide to forgo the villain laugh. “Welcome” he said, “To one of my smaller potions caches.” 

 

He was humming as he pulled out the different ingredients he would need for the wojigunen bath. It was a standard treatment given to wizards and witches when their magic was obviously ill but nobody could figure out why. It was a strong solution that many wizards hardly survived being exposed to or at least their magic didn’t, but Snape had trained his body and tweaked the potion’s formula until it had become part of his spring ritual. He used the bath during the equinox to clean dark influences from his system on a cellular level. He had missed the ritual this year with the war and all. Five minutes, one hummed song and four caldrons of a dark red bubbling potion later, he could focus back on his group of would be rescuers who were all looking at him with very wide eyes. 

 

Lucius smirked the trademarked Slytherin smirk and was the first to speak up. “I remember that song! Fifth year Black had to sing it in the great hall when he lost some bet with Lilly. I would have guessed that it would take all the gold in all my vaults to get you to hum Paul Anka’s "You're Having My Baby in public and here you are doing it for free.” 

 

“Ah,” Snape’s face mirrored the Slytherin smirk, “My most ardent wish has now been granted. The Malfoy fortune is secured. I can die happy now.” Snape was surprised by the high level of distress he could plainly see all on the faces around him and stuttered as he tried to explain himself for once. “I am unused to people that care if I live or die. I have never allowed anybody, not even Albus, into a position …”

 

Potter interrupted him hotly. “I knew it; I knew we would have to make this a fight. Well Snape, we don’t care what you say, you get our help!” 

 

Snape then freaked them all out by beaming a smile at them again. Who even knew that Snape could beam? “That is acceptable. Even welcomed although I doubt I will be able to express my gratitude about it eloquently enough. I must reform, and there is no time like the present. Well, I should say there is no time BUT the present. Ironically, completion of the Successful Sorcerers Test has always been a dream of mine. However, I knew I would never be able to gather the resources or team needed to make the possibility even a glimmer. I do not believe that there is a better team possible than this group.” 

 

Snape gave a sad look at George who had swallowed loudly enough to be noticed. There was a pause while everybody, anybody, tried to think of something of solace to George. Minerva decided just to move things on. “Too bad you don’t have the years to pre-brew your custom battle portions,” Minerva said with a sniff directed at the bubbly potion and an air freshening charm.

 

“Do not speak so hastily,” Snape said as he motioned to the cache and then motioned to follow him into a room so stunning only the Malfoys would have described it simply as ‘a bathroom’. It was so nice that they did not feel weird at all standing around in a group in a water closet. Streaked yellow marble gave the room the peace that can only be found in this world when taking the lazy summer Sunday midafternoon bath. Luna shed a tear thinking on what horrible the life circumstances would need to be imposed to permit the owner of such a bathroom to have greasy hair, but nobody thankfully nobody but Snape noticed and he didn’t know if the tear was a normal thing for Luna, so he let it pass. 

 

“This is much bigger than the prefect’s bathroom!” blurted a nervous Harry. 

 

“How would you… Ah, yes” McGonagall said, “The second task. Do you really believe that Hogwarts students would have a nicer bathroom than the professors would? Especially with two transfiguration masters and the awesome force of nature that is the house elf?” 

 

Snape used his wand to make the bathtub pool sized and to fill it with a cascade of hot water. He dumped the red wojigunen potion in causing the water to boil and then seemed to lose himself watching the simmering vapors lazily float to every corner of the large room and relaxing the group instantly. “I insist on wojigunen baths all around. All of us could use some chemical assistance after the last few years. And I do say insist. Mr. Weasly? What would the inclusion of sun flowers harvested during an eclipse mean?”

 

George jumped a little but didn’t really shed his blanket of grief. “We used that once ... It curls the will of the drinker.” He had paused for a few seconds obviously waiting for his missing twin to speak the next sentence. Finally, he went on with a bitter smile. “It can be fought off … It has to be something they would do… Umm. No singing embarrassing songs….” 

 

“Exactly” Snape purred. Nobody would put dosing them with a compulsion beyond the old Snape but now, in a slight panic, they looked at each other and tried to decide if this new Snape was joking. Snape smirked inwardly. He had not added a compulsion, but the fact that they perceived there might be one would make it easier for them to give into doing the thing they really wanted to do, but were too embarrassed. Besides the fumes from the wojigunen bath were doing a great job ‘ensnaring their senses.’

 

He paused and noted that all their expressions, especially the muggle raised, had started to turn bright red as they took a group step to back out of the room. “Oh please, Do you honestly think generations of proper British Wizards and Witches could do naked or Sky Clad rituals without a respectable pre-potion? He waved his wand and a minute or two later in floated small potion bottles that were cycling from snow white to rosy red. Almost like the potion was blushing themselves. After the group downed the Sky Clad Potion, the professor inside of Snape could not help but remark that the spell ‘intecta negatio decorus‘ or ‘proper notice denial’ could have been used for almost as superior results if needed. 

 

Snape tapped his wand on four runes carved into the floor. A rather thick steam filled the room relaxing everybody even farther with its warmth and woodsy smell. “Now, is that enough for your modern, muggle sensitivities?” At their nods he banished their clothes to the house elf’s laundry and thought to himself -- ‘bewitch their minds’ –check.

 

The stress that had haunted the group since the end of the Tri-wiz tournament poured out instantly resulting in a chorus of heart-filled groans. With an internal cackle, Snape cast a spell that would collect the acid green fluid that was sheeting off their bodies into an auto-sizing beaker. He figured that this would probably create enough concentrated ‘Wizard Flop Sweat’ to last the school through a decade of brewing. It was the main ingredient of the strongest calming potion known to Wizard: The fortunatus domus ( ‘Happy Place).

 

The group was still so blissed out that they didn’t notice any of this. Snape’s whole body seized with joy. This was the feeling that only true unselfish act bring, something his x-spy persona would never allow. He felt part of a family for the first time since his mother died. Only these people were here by choice, they had come to be strong for him when he most needed it. Snape realized this was the opportunity of a lifetime. At last, this was the time to pull out the brews of a lifetime. These potions were so difficult and had such rare and delicate ingredients that they would have proved beyond any doubts that he was the best potion’s master in the world. Unfortunately, nobody else could know because the potions were illegal as well. 

 

The head of Slytherins mind cast back to the delightful “duel” with Lockhart in Harry’s second year. The Snake Summons Spell, also known as the Serpensortia Spell was hard to cast from inside the crowded bathtub, but cast it he did, four times. He sent each snake to a different hidey whole to fetch the hidden decanter. “Here we go my beauties,” he whispered to the snakes as he held up three clouded crystal bottles covered with snake spit and one large muggle red plaid thermos that had been dragged in by a huge leopard spotted anaconda. He waved his wand in a loopy method and said “Semihora finis” (‘half-hour end’) as he pointed to each crystal container. The potion spell would decant each bottle to the bath in thirty-minute intervals: “But in what order? Of course -- ‘Bottle de’ Fame’, ‘Glory Brew’ and Merlin’s own ‘Death Stopper’ and lastly, he would add the thermos.”


	5. Splish Splash

Muggle computer science would be a trillion times better if it could respond to the programmer’s intent rather than what they actually coded.  It was this truth that made magic so much better.  Moreover, there was no type of magic where intent was more important than the class of fame potions.  After all, it was not the respect of the potion drinker themselves that was required but the regard of strangers who would be problematic to dose on a large scale.  Snape would have said all of these class of potions were monkey’s paws or at least contained monkey’s paws.  People really don’t want to be infamous or pity famous and those could be among the likely results if one wasn’t extremely careful.  Ah, but he knew the ‘Bottle de’ Fame Potion’ was fundamentally different.

 

It had been created quite recently by master arithmancoligist Alfred North Whitehead (otherwise known to the wizard world as “Mr. Actions-have-consequences” and the inventor of sum-solving ink).  He argued that wisdom is the source of fame and it must be obtained with labor.  His pen pal Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (the American branch of the Longbottom family) argued, “The talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well, and doing well whatever you do without thought of fame.  If [a potion makes] fame come at all, it will come because it is deserved, not because it is sought after [drank].”  Both men agreed the key to fame was “do what you can do well” because even a flobberworm rancher can be famous if he is, without a doubt, the best flobberworm rancher that the world will ever know.  (* It has not been recorded in muggle history that Whitehead and Longfellow were indeed wizards.)

 

Whitehead was also the great-many-greats grandson of Sallust, (or at least the person that got his earthly possessions) who, besides being Julius Caesar's partisan, was the inventor of the Mirror of Erised.  Whitehead vehemently disagreed with Headmaster Albus Dumbledore who said the mirror “will give neither knowledge or truth” because the knowledge of what exactly a person desires most is a precious knowledge indeed.  The original reason why the mirror was brought to Hogwarts was to help 5th year students decide what career they were most interested in and it had been relatively common that alumni would occasionally return when their life needed a restart.  

 

It was when Whitehead was studying Sallust’s arithmancy notes for enchanting the mirror that he found a quick note scribbled in the margin that said, “Fame is the shadow of passion standing in the light.”  Eureka!  The math for Amortentia was already well known.  Whitehead combined that with Sallust’s ‘Desire Arithmancy’ formulas to compute the amount of an individual’s passion and the beginning of the ‘Bottle de’ Fame Potion’ was born.

 

However, before the passions could be reliable calculated, it was required that the partakers brain become as organized as an Occlumency Master.  No sub-conscience monsters from the id or self-defeating desires could be allowed to lurk and Whitehead designed his potion so that its first step was to clear the mind.  It was this which lead Snape to come to brew the potion.  He had researched for this attribute while trying to find some way to block the dark lord from Potter’s brain.  Unfortunately, it took over six months to gather ingredients and a solar cycle brew because it had to be, umm, ‘processed’ through the digestive system of a living pearl crab six times.  Of course, it was Snape’s horrid karma that the potion was finished the day he murdered Albus.  Potter would have not been willing to take any potion brewed by Snape.   

 

As the ‘Bottle de’ Fame Potion’ was poured a silver mist formed around each person’s head until it looked like they were all wearing aluminum foil British Royal Naval Officer's Bicorn hats.  There probably wasn’t a more controlled or stoic man other than Severus Snape, but even he had to giggle, which caused the rest of the tubs bleary occupants to look around and start laughing and chortling.  Unfortunately, this was abruptly cut off by whimpers when their brains went into super sorting mode and the flop sweat beaker had to enlarge exponentially.  Fortunately, the mental sorting ended before the hats disappeared so they got a bit of a break before the ‘Glory Brew’ was dropped like a bomb into the tub.

 

  
The Felix Felicis potion, also called "Liquid Luck" gave the partaker one perfect day.  The Glory Brew caused a genetic mutation that would give the partaker one physical feature so perfect, so glorious, that better could never be found.  The effects kicked in with a tickle and then what felt like a thousand tiny fish feasting upon their skin while their bones bubbled and everybody but Snape’s hair fell out in mostly melted globs.  Snape held in a panicked scream when it became clear that the potion was affecting more than one feature.  His brilliant mind came up with a few theories as to why it was doing a whole body transform and then he had to hold in a dark cackle as he figured it out.  Intent.  These friends intent had been to ‘share the glory’. 

 

Seven sets of bleary eyes opened and Snape explained what was happening.

 

The first gory was obvious.  With an iridescent bubble popping on his head, Lucius’ hair had been returned to glory.  Shimmering bubbles flew towards the other bathers and head by head they became the pinnacle of which stylists dreams are made.   Snape was particularly happy about that because it meant that he was no longer bald and would never have thin greasy hair again.  The group boggled when Minerva’s bubble burst.

 

There was already just something wrong with seeing Minerva with her hair down no matter what.  The fact that it was now a glorious black only called this more into relief.  Hermione too distracted by her own hair and was purring as she petted her no longer frizzy, honey colored tresses.  Although she knew it was petty, she couldn’t help but think “Take that, Pansy Parkinson!!”  George just looked sadly at his long hair remembering when he and Fred has tried to make Rapunzel’s Revenge but only had access to rancid ptolemy.  They had spent a wild night chopping and burning their hair as fast as it grew.  At least this time his hair did not smell like ghoul poop.

 

The next iridescent bubble formed first on Potter’s face.  Snape was worried that they were all going to have green near-sighted eyes but only Potter’s eyes were still that shade of green at the end.  With dropped jaw Snape rudely stared at Harry and could only think of Lilly’s eyes, which were her glory indeed.  All of the group’s eyes picked up his eye’s color saturation, depth and sparkle.  This was such a striking difference for all that it was quickly noted.  Nobody’s eyes had looked much better than dead in a long while, even Harry’s.

 

Snape noticed his vision blurring.  Damn, the eye-glasses, the iconic Potter eye glasses.  He would have to forward his research on an eyesight fixing potion he had in mind to somebody.  If the muggles could fix eyes by changing the shape of the eye with lasers, wizards should be able to fix the shape with the Lockheart bone melting version of Brackium Emendo and Skele-Gro.  Luckily he was sitting next to Luna so he could understand what was happening when the bubble took shape over her eyes and then spread to the group. 

 

Many things in the bathroom now glowed dimly through the mist that didn’t have a glow only seconds before.  Most surprising, there were three beings that looked rather like big headed praying mantises in colors that he had never seen across the tub on Hermione’s head.  Snape knew that some people were color blind and he had heard that some people were color blessed and could see an extra color.  It didn’t really surprise him that Luna might see even more colors than that.  Three new colors if he was counting things correctly and he wasn’t sure that he was.   Snape also noticed the clarity of his sight return.  Because of Luna, none of them would need glasses.  Luna was almost crying in hysterics at the look on Hermione’s face.  “Those are nargles!”

 

Hermione knew she would have to acknowledge that there was more on earth that had been dreamed about in her possibilities.  Much more.  She decided to try to be gracious about it but with Luna snorting and laughing so hard it wasn’t going to be easy.  Luna became serious when one of the nargles jumped to her shoulder and said something in her ear.  Nobody else could hear it and Snape wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not.  It would be glorious to see magic, but he didn’t want to lose a solid grip on the real world.  Thankfully, the magic read his intent and nobody was gifted with as strong a gift of seeing as Luna. 

 

The bubbles tickled as they from on Severus’s hands and began to flow to the others.  By the sounds they were making he didn’t believe the group felt “tickled” as they received the hands of an artist, potion maker or musician.  He would not have guessed this to be his genetic glory, but he realized he was nothing if not a doer.  Many people had talked and strategized for the war, but he was one of the few that was out there doing things.  Kingsley had once called him a “Mud Mage,” a wizard not afraid to get dirty to get the job done.  Snape could never be happy sitting on sidelines.  That is what drove him to create his own practical spells in fifth year when most of his year were struggling to learn the standard ones. 

 

Some of the glories would not be noticed for a long time. 

 

Hermione had always gloried in her intellect, the core being an eidetic memory that never allowed the vast knowledge contained in her books to fade from her mind.  George’s glory would take the longest to show as he gave the twin mutation, guaranteeing that Hogwarts would long be blessed (cursed?) with identical prankster twins. They would never really know for sure that from Minerva the gift was long youth.  There had only been two warriors in the last battle that graduated Hogwarts in the 1940s and Voldemort had cheated by having a second body.  Minerva wasn’t arrogant about this though because Horace Slughorn was even more impressive.  He was from the generation before hers and was spry enough to duel Voldemort and take out a few death eaters during the final battle. 

 

Snape wished that he had chosen a longer interval between potions.  The group shared an almost whimper as they watched the third potion start to tip into the bath.  This one was called ‘Merlin’s own Death Stopper’.  This potion gave death a pass for anything but the Avada Kedavra Killing curse.  Because phoenix tears were the main ingredient Snape had reasoned that drinking this would be like pre-loading your body with a phoenix tear cocktail.  None of the bathers were expecting this potion to be a pleasant experience, as the first two potions certainly were not.  The pink mixture sloshed into the bath and the fog that had been peacefully floating about the room suddenly formed into a larger than life Fawkes singing and cavorting wildly the room with the elation that only a phoenix can know.  The fog Fawkes song grew quieter and then the turned downhearted.  Tears pooled in the bird’s eyes and then dripped one by one, seven times, into the tub.  They all felt absolute joy as the potion kicked in, it was as if Fawkes was singing his best phoenix song from somewhere inside their very magic. 

 

The phoenix started to fade out as the potion effects started to dim.  They had not seen Fawkes since the Headmaster had died and they didn’t know if they would ever see a phoenix again.  The comrades were all adding their own tears into the hot bath water as the last note and the last hue of pink faded.  The magical power of tears is not just limited to phoenixes but any magical creature.  This included wizards for all their bluster around being called a creature.  The group’s tears added power to the very last Fawkes glimmer of phoenix magic and something new popped like a glowing ember.  A pinkish-gold fog plume floated down towards the bathers and slowly transformed so that it was a real tail feather that landed gently in Harry’s hand.  Harry understood and was overjoyed that someday he would have his phoenix wand back.

 

There was next an awkward pause.  They had forgotten that they were having a community bath but now the fog was gone, the magic potential was realized and their bodies ached with the changes.  None of them were up to climbing out of the now clear water while naked in body and spirit.  Minerva looked at Snape as if to say “Nu?  Fix this!”  Snape accioed the thermos, which after opening quickly filled the room with a thick purple mist and the deep rumble of thunder.  The spent wojigunen bath was vanished from the tub and the bodies magically dried and with the pop of elves, toga like robes wrapped around their bodies.  They each took a minute to center themselves because the magic in the room was building quickly and already stronger than it had been yet today.

 

Snape’s deep voice rang out sounding almost elemental “Now, three times seven deep breaths and so mote it be.”

 

“Breathe in…  Hold... Breathe out… Hold...”  
“Breathe in…  Hold... Breathe out… Hold...”  
“Breathe in…  Hold... Breathe out… Hold...”

 

 

 


End file.
